1999 SVT Cobra - Parental Control

Jeremy Drake's Twin-Turbo '99 Cobra Is A Representation Of The Sacrifices Parents Make For Their Children.

Marc ChristAssociate Editor

March 4, 2010

Photos By:
Jim McIlvaine

All parents make sacrifices for their children. Whether it's something as small as buying diapers and formula instead of the Saturday night fight on Pay-Per-View, or as large as putting your dreams or education on hold to support your family, some things just have to be given up to support the greater good.

Jeremy Drake of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, knows a thing or two about the struggles and sacrifices of parenthood. Having never owned anything fast or cool, Jeremy was looking to buy a '99 or '00 SVT Lightning in 2001. Before he could find one, though, he and his wife found out they were expecting their first child. Since a Lightning wouldn't have a back seat, it was immediately scratched from the plans. Fortunately for Jeremy, he found this '99 SVT Cobra for sale on a local car lot. Though it wasn't what he wanted originally, the Cobra is a far cry from having to drive a minivan.

"The day I got the car, the bolt-ons began," Jeremy tells us. Pretty soon, he had installed almost every bolt-on upgrade available at the time, but he still wanted more power. So he installed a ProCharger P-1SC centrifugal supercharger.

By that time, the '03 SVT Cobras were prowling the streets, and Jeremy didn't want to be another victim of the Terminator smack down. So he started drawing up plans for more boost.

Jeremy started by dropping and disassembling the engine. He had the block overbored, and installed Manley I-beam rods and a set of 9cc dished CP pistons. He handed lubrication duty to a Modular Mustang Racing oil pump, and installed a Canton windage tray and oil pan. With the addition of a ProCharger D-1SC pumping out 19 psi, Jeremy was able to run a best quarter-mile e.t. of 11.1 at 127 mph on the new combination, just shy of his 10-second goal.

Though well able to whip up on stock Terminators, Jeremy still wasn't satisfied with the new setup. "It sounded like a 747 airplane was coming down the street," he said of the sound of the blower. It was so loud that his daughter, Kaylee, was too scared to ride in the car anymore. Soon to come was yet another sacrifice that Jeremy would make for his daughter.

Jeremy found a used Turbo Horsepower twin-turbo kit for sale locally, and made the transformation from supercharged to turbocharged. Twin 57mm Garrett turbos spool up with the help of custom headers and hot-side plumbing, and feed compressed air through polished aluminum cold-side pipes and into the front-mounted air-to-air intercooler. The 17-psi air charge is monitored by an SCT Big Air mass air meter, and fed into a Sullivan intake through a twin-57mm throttle body.

Fuel is supplied by twin 255-lph Walbro pumps and regulated to 50 psi by an Aeromotive regulator. A set of 60-lb/hr injectors supplies the 93 octane to the intake ports, and the air/fuel mix is ignited by NGK spark plugs.

To help apply all that extra power to the pavement, Jeremy had to make some major chassis improvements. Up front, he installed a pair of QA1 A-arms, Bilstein struts, and Maximum Motorsports coilovers. In the rear, he ditched the IRS for a solid 8.8-inch axle, complete with an Eaton locker, Strange axles, and 3.27 gears. He went with Steeda upper and lower control arms, Lakewood shocks, and stock springs from an '01 Bullitt Mustang.

In an effort to give his Cobra a unique look, Jeremy upgraded the hood and bumpers to panels from an '03 Cobra, and moved the stock spoiler back a couple of inches. The Rio Red coupe rolls on 18-inch True Forged Chicanes, 9 inches wide in the front and 10.5 inches wide in the rear, all wrapped in 245mm Nitto NT555 rubber.

Once the build was complete, Jeremy turned to Bob Kurgan of Kurgan Motorsports (Byron, Illinois) to create a tune. Kurgan used an SCT tuner to dial in Jeremy's coupe, which laid down 737 rwhp and 660 lb-ft of torque through a T-45 trans.

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After a few broken transmissions, Jeremy decided it was time to go with a tougher gearbox. Since he knew some guys that had good luck with the TH400, he called on Mike Ridings at Ridings Transmissions (Detroit, Michigan) to build one that could handle the kind of power he was making.

Though it now only makes 664 rwhp and 588 lb-ft of torque through the automatic, the real improvement is on the timeslip. Recently, Jeremy peddled his slick Snake to a best of 9.87 at 125 mph. "I drove it to the dragstrip, ran 9s, and drove it home ... it doesn't get any better than that in my book," he says.

It's almost unbelievable that the purchase of the car and the installation of the twin turbos were sacrifices Jeremy made for his daughter. Life should be such a fairytale for the rest of us.